jittery jermo

I feel like I'm watching our child starve but I'm not
I feel like a prisoner but I've got freedom and opportunity minus inclination
I writhe and shudder but I walk around on two feet and do my taxes every year
it's a very painless process
I feel like I'm watching our child starve
this soft bundle of flesh out in the street 
under the rain 
under the snow 
flicking locusts off its head
but hey
not at all actually
but why all this feeling
I know the disease and the antidote is time and distance
no magic pill no magic beans 
just physical therapy and routine practical application of established principles
positive routine
repetition
positive routine
repetition

i'm in the mirror now bracing myself:
you will see her and feel something
you feel something now and it's dread
now mockingly
poor you
boo hoo
how dare she not nurse this joy
the gall is too much
so you scoop it up and hold it to her breast panicked
but it's not a child
it's a bundle of rags
a potato wrapped in wilted lettuce found in the trash
you're acting like it's the apple of eden
but it's not
not at all
it's not the thing you think it is
you are a maniac

i am a maniac
i think our child is starving
but it never was
not a stillbirth
not a missed period
just a pretty little idea we had that one of us fed and one of us starved 
i was a fool and i still am
the errors and missteps now painstakingly clear of course
our ballet of innocence and adoration really 
drunken footsteps baked in clay along a fossilized riverbed once passionate once actual passion now dried under the sun to be remembered for ages like the steps of weird ill-fated fauna in the awkward age between dinosaur and man 

all I can think about are the afternoons and mornings we spent
hearts racing, my graceful hands and her clumsy mouth
the thrilling taste of skin and salt
somehow polluted with three words she spoke first 
that simple series of sounds that made me feel soulless for lacking sense to say it first

and now, again, here before you I'm watching our child starve in the street
but I'm not
it's a bundle of rags and I panic while it perishes from neglect
and i have been shivering under the sun since spring
feeding scraps of my flesh to this bundle of rags
cherishing it and keeping it warm
rocking it softly to sleep
me, a human being
once royalty and now a vagrant in the city of love
starving and ashamed
cradling a heap of cloth

I can see things clearly
I'm longing for something still
still
despite everything
despite the foul air and the dreary solitude
hope grew in me like cancer i could not excise
but i thought my heart had grown two more chambers
that was false
and I am here
standing before you
now 
here 
today
look at your watch
today
i'm almost ready to tear it out
no time for tools 
no time for a quick swig of alcohol
i'm here
i am breathing quicker
nervous and excited and scared
this is what i've been training for
here 
now
shallow breaths
sweating
like the throes of passion but not alike at all
ready to tear everything out
and there's still more fear than excitement
until there's neither
there's only my obligation to myself and a wooden scalpel in my hand

then seeping in from somewhere, concern 
not for what I am about to do
but what I let this turn me into